The Language of Assessment Matters

I have been thinking a great deal about the language we use for assessment, and I have found myself returning to one distinction that once felt obvious to me. In the contexts in which I trained and have taught, 'marking' and 'grading' were not the same thing. Marking meant carefully reading student work to notice strengths, identify misconceptions, and offer next steps. It was part of the learning process. Grading was something different and done much less often: a professional judgement made after enough evidence had been gathered across time.

More recently, I have noticed the word 'grading' is used for almost everything. A piece of work is submitted, and we talk about “grading” it. Feedback is added, and we still call it grading, often attaching a score at the same time. This continues despite longstanding evidence that grades can overpower feedback. Butler (1988) found that students who received comments alone showed greater gains than those given comments with grades, because the grade drew attention away from the learning. Wiliam (2011) likewise argues that formative assessment is diminished when judgement overtakes guidance. Students ask when work will be graded, even when what they really need is a response that helps them improve.

The more I hear it, the more I wonder whether the language itself is doing more than describing the practice. I wonder whether it is shaping it. When educators use the language of grading to describe every encounter with student work, they may unintentionally reinforce a culture of judgement rather than a culture of feedback, growth, and evidence-building. Words do not sit passively around practice. They frame what we think we are doing. If every piece of work is seen through the lens of grading, it becomes much harder to preserve space for drafting, critique, rehearsal, revision, and response. Students learn to ask, “What did I get?” before they ask, “What did I learn?” Teachers can begin to feel that every interaction with student work requires a score, a label, or a judgement, rather than careful noticing. I do not think this is a trivial semantic issue. I suspect it is one of the hidden ways grade culture sustains itself.

Part of why I find this so difficult to ignore is that it runs against how I learned to understand assessment and how I now want to help shape it in my current context. In the systems in which I have taught, including the IB Diploma Programme, A levels, and GCSEs, grades were cumulative judgements made across a body of evidence, not labels casually attached to each task or component along the way. In MYP too, a grade could only be awarded once all assessment objectives had been taught and each had been assessed at least twice over the year. Students received feedback, opportunities to improve, and indications of progress, but not a constant stream of grades attached to every piece of work. The distinction matters because it protects the space between performance and judgement. It allows learning to remain developmental rather than constantly measured in miniature and reduced to a score.

Equally, a single task rarely tells the whole story. A grade is supposed to be a judgement across evidence, not a reaction to one moment. Feldman (2019) argues that traditional grading practices often distort what grades are meant to communicate, particularly when they are influenced by non-academic factors or used in ways that reinforce inequity. Berger, Rugen, and Woodfin (2014) similarly emphasise the importance of student-engaged assessment built around clear criteria, critique, and revision. Their work reminds us that assessment should help learners understand quality, reflect on their progress, and improve their work, rather than simply collect marks. Berger, Woodfin, and Vilen (2016) extend this through deeper instruction, showing that meaningful learning depends on challenge, reflection, and opportunities to refine understanding over time.

This understanding also sits closely with the direction of our current assessment approach. We are working to move away from grade culture and towards a more continuous view of assessment in which students receive feedback that helps them understand where they are in relation to learning goals and what their next steps are. Our policy direction is rooted less in assigning grades to isolated tasks and more in building a fuller picture of learning over time. That is one reason the language matters so much. If we continue to describe every response to student work as grading, we risk pulling practice back towards judgement even when our stated intention is growth, reflection, and a more holistic professional understanding of student learning.

Perhaps one of the shifts we need is surprisingly simple: greater precision. Most of the time, we are not 'grading'. We are reading, noticing, responding, coaching, and building a picture of learning. We are marking for growth. Grading should come later, when there is enough evidence to make a fair and cumulative professional judgement.

The language of assessment matters because it shapes the culture of assessment. And culture, in the end, shapes what students believe learning is for.

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References

Berger, R., Rugen, L., & Woodfin, L. (2014). Leaders of their own learning: Transforming schools through student-engaged assessment. Jossey-Bass.

Berger, R., Woodfin, L., & Vilen, A. (2016). Learning that lasts: Challenging, engaging, and empowering students with deeper instruction. Jossey-Bass.

Butler, R. (1988). Task-involving and ego-involving properties of evaluation: Effects of different feedback conditions on motivational perceptions, interest, and performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80(1), 1–14.

Feldman, J. (2019). Grading for equity: What it is, why it matters, and how it can transform schools and classrooms. Corwin.

Wiliam, D. (2011). Embedded formative assessment. Solution Tree Press.